Guard rails are a very important item of automobile safety. A typical guardrail has I-beam shaped posts in the ground. Mounted on the face of the I-beam shaped post are corrugated rails. These guardrails are very strong and can serve a great function in preventing auto accidents or keeping cars from going off the road. When they do this, great advantages are obtained.
The idea of the rail is to prevent a car from either getting into further trouble or suffering more extensive damage, while at the same time providing protection and appropriate usage of a vehicle. These safety devices are very critical for curves in roads, or for roads that run along the edge of cliffs.
These guardrails are even better if reflectors can efficiently be secured thereto. However, it is also desired to very efficiently apply reflectors to these items. It is very difficult to efficiently apply reflectors to such a guard rail because there is a matter of having the reflector be visible and be efficiently attached to the guardrail.
If the reflector has to be bolted on, great expense occurs, both in the attaching time and the manufacturing time to provide for such attachment. Also, the required drilling of the bolt holes can adversely effect the strength of the guardrail. Accordingly, it is desired to attach these reflectors by a system other than bolting.
A standard way of attaching reflectors to guardrails is gluing the reflectors in place. However, since these guardrails are metal, the different co-efficient of expansion between the plastic reflectors and metal guardrail causes a problem. These different expansion rates, due to heat, causes the glue holding the reflector on the metal to weaken. The reflectors then fall off.
If a method can be adapted to secure these reflectors to the guardrail, in a very efficient manner, while avoiding the bolting and drilling, the strength of the guardrail is maintained while at the same time the reflectors are put in place. It is clear that the reflectors are a great advantage because they permit to guardrails to be seen more easily and more efficiently.
A preferred place to adhere a reflector is in the center of a corrugated guardrail. However, the co-efficient of the expansion can force the even a bolted on reflector to break and loose its effectiveness. Thus, it is desired to find ad efficient way of applying this guardrail while at the same time keeping the expensive of applying the reflectors reduced. In this fashion, the advantages of reflectors on guardrails can be obtained without undesirable results.
Another preferred place of securing a reflector to a guardrail is on the I-beam shaped post support. Similar problems occur with the attachment of reflectors there too. The attachment must be strong and efficient. If these problems can be solved, great advantages can be obtained.